Archive for the 'Hardware Tips' Category

The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide

From Ed Bott’s Blog:

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this resource, but it sure does look comprehensive. Definitely a good starting point if you’re stumped by what one of those obscure BIOS options really means.

Consider this and similar sites as reference tools, not as a bible. For what it’s worth, I don’t recommend spending a lot of time and energy tweaking BIOS settings for better performance. The odds that you’ll screw something up and hose your system are much greater than any minuscule performance gain you’re likely to see. But sometimes you can fix a conflict or provide a better configuration for a specific piece of hardware than the default settings.

As always, Ed’s blog is great! Check out both Ed’s blog, as well as the link he refers to.

Refilling Ink Cartridges

About 2 years ago my father bought me an Interactive Media Sales, LLC (IMS) Ink Refill System. It sounds sophisticated, but it was just a simple set of squeeze bottles with ink to refill my ink cartridges. The first couple of times I used it, it was a little messy, but I quickly got used to how much ink to put in, and how best to do it. In the last 2 years, I’ve only purchased 1 set of cartridges for my hp deskjet 990cxi printer, and that was only because we were doing something very important and I wanted to make sure that the cartridges were good.

I believe the refill kit cost $30 CDN at the local Costco, and has saved me probably hundreds of dollars worth of ink cartridges.

One way that I have been lucky though, is that at my place of work, they have several different printers that use the same ink cartridges. I’ve asked people when they are empty to give them to me. I have a collection of probably 30+ empty ink cartridges that I can try if it seems like a print head is dead. I don’t really have to mess with trying to clean the print head. I just toss the cartridge and try another one.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to try refill kits. This one has worked great for me.

USBMan

USB and USB 2.0 tips, tricks, reviews, news, troubleshooting, problem solving and information.

They have information by Windows version, host type (chip maker), an active forum, and more. If you have USB problems or question, check it out at http://www.usbman.com/

Why Do-It-Yourself Photo Printing Doesn’t Add Up

From the New York Times:

Prices of printers have dropped up to 30 percent in the last few months thanks to a savage price war. Is this then the time to buy a photo printer for your home?

After all, for about $200 you can get the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 8250 that in just 14 seconds spits out a photo that equals the quality of those coming back from the photo finisher in an hour. For the same price, Canon’s iP6600D prints a borderless 4-by-6-inch photo in 46 seconds, but also prints on both sides of dual-side photo paper.

The catch is that after you make an initial investment, you are going to pay at least 28 cents a print, if you believe the manufacturers’ math. It could be closer to 50 cents a print if you trust the testing of product reviewers at Consumer Reports.

All things laptops

Laptop news from Laptopical. View notebook computer reviews and read articles about laptops from brand names such as Acer, Apple, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, IBM, Sager, Sony and Toshiba. Weblog includes news about Centrino, Sonoma and Turion chips and processors.

There is a blog, news, reviews, and articles. If you are looking for information on a laptop, this would be a good place to start.
http://www.laptopical.com/

LightScribe

It has been close to a year since we first mentioned LightScribe technology. While Lightscribe drives are still few and far between, it appears as though they will be here shortly.

I saw my first lightscribe commercial onTV the other day. HP is now including Lightscribe enable drives in some of it’s PC’s. Bestbuy.com has two of the models available for purchase, though I have not seen them in Canada yet.

NETGEAR - Wireless Digital Media Player

Another wireless digital media player, this one from Netgear. The first one we saw was from D-Link. We’ll see if we can’t get a review lined up for the new year on one or both of these products.